{"id":110208,"date":"2024-12-02T06:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T11:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=110208"},"modified":"2024-12-02T04:40:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T09:40:05","slug":"malik-monk-starts-first-time-ever-with-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/02\/malik-monk-starts-first-time-ever-with-kings\/","title":{"rendered":"Malik Monk Starts For First Time Ever With Kings, Will It Continue?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacramento Kings<\/a> shooting guard Malik Monk<\/a> joined the team in free agency in the 2022 offseason. He signed a two-year, $19.4 million deal after a solid season with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> in 2021-22. With the Lakers, Monk started 37 of his 76 appearances.<\/p>\n

With the Kings, Monk has assumed the role of super sub. After finishing fifth in Sixth Man of the Year voting in 2022-23, he finished as the runner-up to Naz Reid<\/a> last season. Entering Sunday, the 26-year-old Monk played in 160 regular season (and seven) postseason games for Sacramento. Now in his third season with the team, every one of those outings saw him come off the bench.<\/p>\n

That lengthy stretch finally came to an end on Sunday as Monk was a part of the Kings starting five.<\/p>\n

Malik Monk Starts For First Time Ever With Kings, Will It Continue?<\/h2>\n

Monk Utilized As A Starter On Sunday<\/h3>\n

The Kings have been floundering a bit of late. That continued Sunday as they lost to the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> by the score of 127-125. It was their sixth loss in their last seven contests, dropping their record to 9-12 on the season. The Kings were without shooting guard Kevin Huerter<\/a>, who injured his ankle on Friday. Huerter had started his first 15 appearances this season, but he had been moved to the bench each of the last three games for Sacramento. Taking his place with the starters was undrafted third-year player, Keon Ellis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was assumed by most that Ellis would just once again be in the starting lineup on Sunday. Perhaps head coach Mike Brown sensed that the Kings needed to switch something up to stop the recent bleeding. The switch he made was inserting Malik Monk as a starter for the first time ever as a member of the Kings.<\/p>\n

While Sacramento lost in a close game, Monk performed well. In 37 minutes, the 6-foot-3 guard poured in 19 points to go along with seven rebounds, six assists, one steal, and a block. The eighth-year player shot 7-14 from the field and 5-10 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

After the game, Brown let it be known that this might not be a one-time thing for Monk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalik\u2019s going to start. Will there come a day I want to change it? Maybe, I don\u2019t know,\u201d Brown said<\/a>. \u201cBut what we\u2019ve done so far hasn\u2019t resulted in good things in terms of our record. So I felt like I needed to shake it up.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kings next game is at home on Tuesday against the Houston Rockets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Huerter Has Been Inaccurate From Deep This Season<\/h3>\n

Traded to the Kings from the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> in the 2022 offseason, Huerter was excellent for Sacramento in his first season with the team. He was the full-time starting shooting guard on a Kings team that reached the playoffs for the first time in 17 seasons.<\/p>\n

Huerter\u2019s numbers took a dip last season though. Through 18 outings, he has been even worse this season as his efficiency is at a career-worst. The 26-year-old has a shooting split this season of .408\/.277\/.615.<\/p>\n

Without improvement, one has to wonder whether Huerter\u2019s days as the Kings starting shooting guard are over. Ellis is a low-usage player (although he has shot well from three-point territory thus far). The Kings don\u2019t want to fall too far in the standings as they once again want to make the postseason, and Brown wants to see if Malik Monk as a starter can provide a spark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sacramento Kings shooting guard Malik Monk joined the team in free agency in the 2022 offseason. He signed a two-year, $19.4 million deal after a solid season with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2021-22. With the Lakers, Monk started 37 of his 76 appearances. With the Kings, Monk has assumed the role of super sub. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":110223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,3,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-kings"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110224,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110208\/revisions\/110224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}